48
by Radio Interference
Summary: Doesn't that make you feel better? But it didn't.


**To explain how this came into being would be a practice of futility. I'm sorry. Go ahead and read it though, I guess. **

* * *

48 Hours, that was all.

A benign, an otherworldly confidence was needed for such an operation; This was not hitting a buzzer beater at one of those collegiate tournament games that littered the television sets at the time of year, nor was it carefully guiding an airplane towards the ground in a crash landing- safely, no less. Spur of the moment decisions are not the same ones as the kind that, well, fuck it, you KNOW you have to do. That is the kind you need self-confidence for, erring on arrogance; the kind of swagger to pull off such a monumental feat you've been planning for all along.

And he was not in possesion of that confidence.

But yet, he worked. Brow furrowed, heart rate racing. One fuckup and it's all over. One good move and you're a hero.

He stops, waiting for some invisible assistant to take over. Nothing happens as he stands over the corpse. Cables and numerous amounts of pseudo-technological equipment air over the close proximity. He wipes his face- drenched with sweat, beads of it seeping through pores like a roasted pig- and sighs in frustration. In despair.

At the worst times. It always happens to him.

It was one of the times that Miles Prower realized that he was only eight years old, a child. As smart as he was, he was no surgeon. Things that books and internet guides cannot teach out. He was in over his head, way over his head. The feeling swallowed him, chewed him up, and shit him out with a reckless abandon.

The world seemed to move faster.

Miles tries to shake it off. Two days. You can do this. Whispering sweet nothings to himself. Get working.

He connects several wires and CPU chips with names and roles too specialized and long-winded to fully explain here.

The then-corpse shuddered, full of electricity. Pumping through the bloodstream, working like to bring together another Frankenstein's monster.

There, he tells himself. Doesn't it make you feel better? But it didn't.

* * *

_For as long as he could remember, not once did he catch Sonic crying._

_Not once. Ever. Maybe after he had gone off to sleep, the hedgehog may have been crying. But Miles was unknowing for the most part._

_Until the day._

_It was a particularly restless day. The atmosphere was unsafe, to say the least. The weather forecaster had predicted clear skies. This was probably true, but the air was being pierced with rockets and gunfire and all of the violence from the ground that seeing anything 10 feet above you that was not smoke was unprecedented, a great feat in itself._

_Tails- he hated that name, but took it in jest- would watch the fighting from a distance, but he never took in it. Never enjoyed it, either. He'd take a pair of binoculars up to the observation deck and try and spot out friends, or a familiar face. And then he'd see them down there in combat, and leave, disgusted and fearful._

_But today was no different._

_In fact, he was just returning up from watching the almost-weekly combat against the robots when he heard sobbing._

_Violent sobbing. Heaving, broken crying. Heartbroken. Or something of the sort. It was not sniffling, kleenex-while-you-watch-brian's-song kind of crying. It was real pain; not the kind breaking legs, but hurting._

_Inside._

_Miles raced down the stairs, where, SURPRISE! There was Sonic._

_Carrying a bloodstained, indescribable body. The gore in question is specialized- whoever this had been was eviscerated. The image burned in Miles' head, so much that he looked away._

_But the crying._

_Sonic had always comforted Miles whenever he cried- maybe if he had taken a hard fall, or seeing a scary movie that really scared him. But now it was the complete reverse. And Miles, well, he didn't know how to do the same at all._

_When you take it from a different perspective, it's not the same at all._

_"They've killed her, they've k-killed her, Tails"_

* * *

And the 48 hours ticked by. Time. Miles had always been fascinated by it. He had been fascinated by a lot of things.

For one thing, he had always been impressed with Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

No. Not himself- the man was a monster, imposing his will with steel monsters and aluminum murder. But the technology invovled... Was amazing. Miles would pour over blueprints every day, wondering how this worked, how that queried checksums, and how he would implement it to help his friends.

So it was a no brainer- his own attempt at comforting his own hero. He promised him that she would be back. There would be no problem- You'd be able to see her face again, he said.

"Maybe not smashed in like an egg, though," Sonic joked, dryly.

It bothered him a little bit- the thought of artificial life. And also intrigued him. It intrigued many other scientists through time, but ethics suits up in the big house would not be hearing any of it.

It was a touchy subject, of course.

Miles continued to work. Through the night, and through the day. As the forty-eight hours ticked by.

* * *

"So... She's really here?"

"As you and I." Miles insisted. He explained it over and over to Sonic- Sally was here. It was no different than Bunnie, almost.

So she walked by. Sally did. Kind of. Tails had really fucking prayed that it would work, and that it would be all right.

it would be all right, right? but then Sally turns around and it's a robot, not human not mobian not bunnie not anything. sonic just gawks there and says "That's not her" walks away and suddenly that feeling of despair comes ever over again

* * *

OVER AGAN.

Miles Prower stood there, crying. All apart of this, and it still didn't work. It was over. You tried to play god. In reality, you're an eight year old kid who tried to please his best friend. But it doesn't work that way.

And now, Sonic wouldn't be comforting him.


End file.
